Ernakulam Range IG Vijay Sakhare said Campus Front leader Muhammed, who is the first accused in the killing of the Ernakulam Maharajas College student Abhimanyu, has been taken into custody.

Abhimanyu, who was also a member of Student Federation of India (SFI), was stabbed in the stomach in Ernakulam's Maharaja's College (News18)

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Thiruvananthapuram: Sixteen days after the heinous murder of Maharaja's College student leader M Abhimanyu, the prime accused in the case was arrested on Wednesday morning.

The accused has been identified as Muhammed, a third-year Arabic degree student of the college. "The arrested is a native of Chertala in Alappuzha and the unit president of Campus Front of India (CFI) in the college. He was also CFI's Alappuzha district secretary," a police officer said, adding that he confessed his role in the July 2 murder conspiracy to the Special Investigating Team (SIT).

According to a local news report, Muhammed was apprehended from Kerala-Karnataka border between Kasaragod and Mangaluru.

With this, a total of 11 people have been arrested in connection with the case and five of them were a part of the gang which attacked Abhimanyu. The police believe that there were 17 members in the gang that attacked the SFI members and a man named Muhammad (not the arrested) had stabbed him to death. However, the police is yet to seize the weapon used to killed Abhimanyu.

According to the SIT, CFI district committee member Adhil, arrested on Saturday, was also directly involved in executing the crime.

According to Adhil's statement to the team, CFI had "decided to paint the wall" for Freshers' Day, and exclude SFI from it. They "carried weapons" and were "prepared to face" any sort of opposition in case of an argument.

The family members of Abhimanyu alleged that he had received several calls and somebody was forcing Abhimanyu to reach the hostel in Kochi at the earliest, and he was called back to be killed.

Earlier this week, the police had made a massive crackdown on SDPI workers, reportedly detaining nearly 700 persons across the state.